Ron Soave wrote:
> Beautiful weekend with some new friends and old cars.
> Frank Clarici came out to visit with his buddies Joe
> Meccia and Steve Bell. Joe, you may recall, is
> Frank’s partner in crime with similar mechanical gifts
> and knowledge of LBC’s and parts. Steve is a Sprite
> enthusiast from Massachusetts, near Plymouth. You may
> have seen Steve’s stunning white Bugeye with the black
> hardtop with the “Sprite Lightning Bolt/Arrow” emblem
> painted on top in some magazines. The boys were
> coming out to check out Peter C.’s parts and to have
> some fun.
>
> Steve arrived Friday to a perfect midwest evening (the
> kind where an 85 degree day turns into "turtleneck
> weather" as the sun goes down), and we had a few hours
> of good conversation over some killer barbecued steaks
> and beer. Steve is a teacher by profession, and I
> enjoyed watching him help my son Bobby learn a little
> bit while we were stargazing with Bobby's telescope.
>
> Frank and Joe rolled in around midnight, and we stayed
> up BS’ing till all hours. Saturday it was up to
> Peter’s, me and Joe in the Sprite, Frank and Steve in
> the rental. Great day of parts digging followed by a
> cookout at Peter’s farm in rural Wisconsin. The
> torrential rains came, but it didn’t seem to dampen
> anyone’s spirits. I left the Bugeye at Peter’s.
>
> Sunday morning we trekked up to Peter’s to meet for
> light parts sifting and a caravan to the Winery and
> car show. We were early, and after a few minutes we
> heard the ripping sound of my car’s exhaust from ½
> mile away or so. Peter and his daughter Genevieve
> came tearing into the parking lot grinning ear to ear.
> Peter shouted “HOW MUCH YOU WANT FOR THIS THING?” as
> he pulled in. I think he’ll be a Bugeye owner again
> real soon (Pete, maybe we can work a deal for the ’31
> Morris Minor!). From Peter’s we made it out to the
> winery with our families. The show was really nice,
> with a good variety of British cars, Wisconsin wine, a
> pretty good band, and spectacular scenery. I was a
> little preoccupied, as I had to referee for a while
> after my sons discovered how much fun it was to beat
> the crap out of each other while rolling down a hill
> toward the vineyard. I still managed to break away
> long enough to pick a slightly beat up 1960 Lotus
> Elite as the car I'd most like to take home (you can
> keep your garage queens, thank you). After some
> excellent homemade bread chased with wine of somewhat
> mixed quality, we started what began as a perfect
> rural back-road drive home. After nearly 3 hours of
> detours, we had all had enough, especially me in the
> Sprite with a decent sunburn starting and bugs
> embedded into my forehead.
>
> The weekend wrapped up with a tremendous feast of
> Chinese food and champagne, complements of my guests.
> I want to thank the guys for coming out – these guys
> are as good as it gets, and the concern and effort
> they made to include my family into everything is
> greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank Peter
> and Jane Caldwell for their graciousness in opening
> their business and home to us. It would have been a
> great time even if I didn’t get to put 400 miles on
> the Sprite! We have to do it again soon.
>
> Get out there and drive,
> Ron
>
> __________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere!
> http://mail.yahoo.com/
|